A persistent problem in the mobile station market has been the occurrence of a so-called No Fault Found (NFF) indication after a user or subscriber returns a purportedly nonfunctioning or malfunctioning mobile station to a dealer or to a network service provider. For example, the subscriber may report that the mobile station exhibits a particular problem or failure mode; however, a technician at a repair depot or center is unable to find any type of malfunction or problem with the returned mobile station, and must issue a NFF report. In a typical case the problem experienced by the subscriber may actually be the result of some temporary problem experienced by the wireless network itself, and not by the mobile station. For example, some network problem may cause the mobile station to repeatedly drop calls, or to be unable to obtain service.
It will be appreciated that this type of problem can be costly for the dealer and/or service provider, as well as for the manufacturer. In addition, the user may develop an unfavorable impression of the manufacturer of the mobile station, even though the problem experienced by the user lies totally outside the control of the manufacturer.
It is thus a first object and advantage of this invention to provide an improved radiotelephone and service provider interaction that overcomes the foregoing and other problems.
It is another object and advantage of this invention to provide a mobile station that stores and maintains a plurality of Product Performance Counters (PPCs) that are indicative of the electrical and operational state of the mobile station.
It is a further object and advantage of this invention to provide a mobile station that stores and maintains a set of PPCs, and that is further able to transmit the complete set or a subset of the PPCs to an external location for analysis.
It is one further object and advantage of this invention to provide a computer at a location external to the mobile station, the computer being capable of analyzing the PPCs, as well as other data inputs, to determine a fault status of the mobile station and/or wireless network.
It is another object and advantage of this invention to provide a mobile station that stores and maintains a set of PPCs and that operates, in response to receiving an encrypted PPC request message, for transmitting the complete set or a subset of the PPCs to an external location.
The foregoing and other problems are overcome and the objects and advantages are realized by methods and apparatus in accordance with embodiments of this invention.